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Can today's professionals afford the lifestyle yesterday's professionals took for granted?

ended 28. September 2026

Financial planner Scott Gallacher of Rowley Turton says a growing number of his working-age clients are asking some version of the same question:

“Where does all our money go?”

These aren't necessarily people struggling financially. Many are successful professionals, business owners and senior employees earning what most people would regard as very good salaries.

Yet Gallacher says it increasingly feels as though a professional income doesn't buy the lifestyle it once did.

Higher mortgages, the rising cost of everyday life, frozen tax thresholds and the cost of supporting children through university can quietly absorb a very substantial income.

Private school fees are perhaps the clearest example. Gallacher says he increasingly sees third-generation professional families questioning whether they can afford to send their own children to the same schools they attended themselves.

We'd ask the following questions:

  • Are you seeing a squeezed middle?
  • Can today's doctors, lawyers, accountants, financial professionals and senior managers afford the same lifestyle that people in similar careers enjoyed a generation ago?
  • Has fiscal drag changed what constitutes a genuinely “high” income?
  • Are families cutting back on holidays, cars, eating out and home improvements simply to maintain other priorities?
  • Are things such as private education, larger homes and holiday properties becoming less attainable even for successful professional families?
  • And at what income does a household actually start to feel affluent today — £75,000, £100,000, £150,000 or considerably more?

We would be interested to hear what other advisers, economists and consumer experts are seeing.

10 responses from the Newspage community

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Scott GallacherVerified
Director at Rowley Turton
I certainly see third-generation professional and business families where the parents went to private school, and often their parents did too, but who are now questioning not whether they can justify sending their own children to the same schools, but whether they can actually afford to.

What makes that more striking is that, unlike previous generations, both parents are now often working and earning good salaries.

The same appears true elsewhere. Holiday homes feel less common, and even among high earners, the family home often seems less substantial than the one their parents could buy at a similar stage of life.

These households are not poor. But higher mortgages, fiscal drag, university costs and the wider cost of living are absorbing more of their income.

My observation is that, even with two incomes, professional families today often seem unable to afford the same lifestyle and financial freedom previous generations took for granted.
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Riz MalikVerified
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
I regularly speak with couples with six-figure combined incomes who don't consider themselves 'well off' especially those with young families. Some of that is lifestyle creep, but much of it also comes from day-to-day living. This forces them to stay on the hamster wheel, usually to the detriment of their health and well-being.
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Jamie ElvinVerified
Director at Strive Mortgages
A six-figure salary used to sound like a passport to a certain lifestyle. Today, a family can earn £150,000 and still find themselves choosing between a larger home, private school fees and regular holidays. The biggest divide is often between people who bought their homes years ago and those trying to buy them now. Two families can earn the same amount, but if one has a small mortgage and the other needs to borrow heavily for a family home, they live in very different financial worlds. That is why asking what salary makes someone affluent misses half the picture. For many professionals, the defining question is how much of that salary they get to keep after paying for their home.
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Martin RaynerVerified
Financial Adviser at Compton Financial Services
Successful professionals increasingly feel poorer than their salary suggests. We used to assume earning more meant significantly more disposable income. That relationship has weakened dramatically.

Tax is a huge part of it. Income between £100,000 and £125,000, and the withdrawal of the personal allowance can create a 60% effective marginal tax rate. For every extra £10 earned, you keep just £4 before National Insurance. Add higher mortgages, childcare and everyday costs and pay rises can make surprisingly little difference.

We are not seeing clients give up holidays, cars or eating out, but they are much more conscious of spending and are scaling these back.

£100,000 used to feel affluent. Particularly in the South East, that has shifted. From what we see, nearer £200,000 household income is increasingly where clients feel they have enough surplus to feel affluent. Taxation has pushed the price of feeling affluent to a much higher income than it used to be.
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Tony RedondoVerified
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
The economics of Britain's professional class have shifted, and not in their favour. High earners face heavy tax, expensive borrowing and a punishing cost of living, so a big salary no longer buys the security or wealth-building pace previous generations took for granted. Business owners are squeezed harder still; the pips are squeaking. Frozen thresholds drag ordinary earners into the 40% band, while the personal allowance taper creates an effective 60% marginal rate between £100,000 and £125,140. Add student loans and it's brutal. Private schooling, a bigger home, a holiday home abroad are largely out of reach on earned income alone, especially with 20% VAT on school fees. True affluence now takes £200,000-plus household income, leaving inherited wealth as the real safety net. No surprise then that the brain drain from the UK keeps growing.
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Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
A six-figure salary is no longer shorthand for a six-figure lifestyle.

I am seeing successful professionals earning what looks like excellent money on paper, yet still asking where it all goes. The answer is often not reckless spending. It is tax, a bigger mortgage, children, commuting, insurance and the cost of maintaining the life their career was supposed to buy.

Fiscal drag matters because frozen thresholds mean pay can rise without purchasing power rising at the same pace.

I would not put one number on “affluent”. £100,000 with no children and a small mortgage is a completely different life from £100,000 in London with two children, a large mortgage and school costs.

That is the squeezed professional class: objectively high income, but far less financial freedom than the headline salary suggests.
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Harvey DhillonVerified
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Fiscal drag has changed what counts as a high income, and the clearest example is a line the tax system draws. The point where you start losing your personal allowance has been £100,000 since 2010-11, and the law never linked it to inflation. On ONS consumer prices, £100,000 then is about £160,000 today. A £100,000 salary is still a good one, but it isn't the high income it was in 2010. So no: a professional with income worth what £100,000 was in 2010 now loses their whole personal allowance, when their predecessor on £100,000 kept all of it. That line is set on one person's income, not a household's: a couple with £80,000 of income each keep their full personal allowances. So I'd put household affluence well above £150,000, and more if one person earns most of it. School fees, a bigger home or a holiday property are harder to reach, partly because frozen tax lines take more as pay rises. Leave a tax line unmoved for long enough and it starts treating a good salary as a high one.
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Paul DenleyVerified
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
There is undoubtedly a squeezed middle. A £100k salary remains a high individual income, but it produces around £69k of net pay before pensions, mortgage, childcare or school fees. Fiscal drag has pulled more earners into higher bands without headline rates rising, and a marginal rate above 60% between £100k and £125k leads many to conclude earning more isn't worth it. Meanwhile, house prices in England have risen from roughly four times earnings around 2000 to more than seven today.

Basic living standards are far higher and manufactured goods relatively cheaper. But when earning more does little to close the gap and asset prices feel out of reach, the result is a creeping inheritocracy: two families on identical salaries can live very differently depending on family help with a deposit, an inheritance or school fees. The uncomfortable question is why financial security for professional families now depends on capital they didn't earn.
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James BlacklerVerified
Managing Director at Oakstead Finance
I'd push back slightly on the idea that this is purely about tax thresholds, because in London the bigger driver is mortgage size relative to income. I regularly see households earning £250,000-plus who still feel financially stretched once you add a £1.5m mortgage and three or four sets of school fees into the mix, and the reality is that a huge chunk of that income is spoken for before a single holiday or home improvement gets considered. HNW and complex-income clients here aren't cutting back because they're reckless, they're cutting back because the cost of maintaining a Battersea or Clapham family lifestyle has genuinely outpaced what even a strong professional income can comfortably absorb.
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Daniel WiltshireVerified
Actuary & IFA at Wiltshire Wealth
I hear this a lot: highly successful professionals who are, in practical terms, struggling to make ends meet. There is real resentment that they can no longer afford to give their children the same opportunities and experiences they themselves took for granted.

The tax system can make this particularly difficult for single-earner households. Then there is what you might call “middle-class inflation”: the cost of skiing holidays in Courchevel, private education, deVOL kitchens and Norland nannies has risen sharply, leaving many families feeling that they are falling behind even when their incomes look comfortable on paper.